The Qualitative Report
Volume 21 | Number 8
Article 7
8-15-2016
Every Day You Are Improving: How College
Students View the Educational Impact of World of
Warcraft
Nariman Alawami
[email protected]
Heng-Yu Ku
University of Northern Colorado, [email protected]
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Alawami, N., & Ku, H. (2016). Every Day You Are Improving: How College Students View the Educational Impact of World of
Warcraft. The Qualitative Report, 21(8), 1428-1440. Retrieved from http://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol21/iss8/7
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Every Day You Are Improving: How College Students View the
Educational Impact of World of Warcraft
Abstract
The purpose of the study was to explore college students’ experiences with playing World of Warcraft (WoW)
and their views on the application of WoW in educational settings. A qualitative case study design was used to
interview three participants who were selected purposively from a Midwestern university. Findings revealed
that players thought that playing WoW was fun, relaxing, motivating, but sometimes almost to the point of
addiction. The findings also support student perceptions of generalization of teamwork, cooperating,
socializing, academic skills, and time management skills learned and practiced in playing WoW to academic
settings. Playing WoW games can provide an important link between the virtual world and the real world as
players develop academic, time management, collaborative, and critical thinking skills.
Keywords
Game Culture, MMORPGs, Online Video Games, Virtual Worlds, Qualitative Case Study
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The Qualitative Report 2016 Volume 21, Number 8, Article 3, 1428-1440
Every Day You Are Improving:
How College Students View the Educational Impact of World of
Warcraft
Nariman Alawami and Heng-Yu Ku
University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, Colorado, USA
The purpose of the study was to explore college students’ experiences with
playing World of Warcraft (WoW) and their views on the application of WoW
in educational settings. A qualitative case study design was used to interview
three participants who were selected purposively from a Midwestern
university. Findings revealed that players thought that playing WoW was fun,
relaxing, motivating, but sometimes almost to the point of addiction. The
findings also support student perceptions of generalization of teamwork,
cooperating, socializing, academic skills, and time management skills learned
and practiced in playing WoW to academic settings. Playing WoW games can
provide an important link between the virtual world and the real world as
players develop academic, time management, collaborative, and critical
thinking skills. Keywords: Game Culture, MMORPGs, Online Video Games,
Virtual Worlds, Qualitative Case Study
The culture of online video gaming has spread immensely around the world, and the
companies who produce video games have made rapid industrial progress and improvements
that have created global markets in this highly profitable commercial sector (Schrader,
Archambault, & Oh-Young, 2011). The outstanding success of video games has encouraged
schools to consider integrating video games into their educational system (Kenny &
McDaniel, 2011). Educational games are increasingly being developed and integrated as part
of student learning in line with the adoption of constructivist thinking which emphasizes
student engagement with learning activities (Kovacevic, Minovic, Milovanovic, de Pablos, &
Starcevic, 2013). However, educators still have reservations about adopting these games,
particularly in light of limited research about generalization of skills learned and developed in
gaming to educational outcomes (Billieux, Linden, Achab, Khazaal, Paraskevopoulos,
Zullino, & Thorens, 2013; Cole & Griffiths, 2007).
Literature Review
With the rapid technological advances made in the last few decades, education and
perspectives on learning have undergone dramatic changes, from theoretical frameworks to
redefining learning and knowledge, and most recently, the inclusion of these newer
technological advances into classrooms and educational settings (Schrader & McCeery,
2008). Today, many classrooms are incorporating best practices from student-centered
models. Along with this change in model, advanced technological hardware and software
have also been incorporated into classrooms, including the entry of video games.
Two of the most widespread types of online video games at present are Massively
Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) and Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing
Games (MMORPGs) such as World of Warcraft (WoW; Campello de Souza, Lima e Silva, &
Roazzi, 2010). These games are also gaining the attention of educators seeking ways to
incorporate these games or features of the games into classrooms. MMOGs and MMORPGs
are classified as commercial games that have attracted the attention of many people. These
Nariman Alawami and Heng-Yu Ku
1429
games are rich with fun and entertainment factors, while most educational software lacks
these factors (Paraskeva, Mysirlaki, & Papagianni, 2010).
This new conceptualization is reflected by Paraskeva, Mysirlaki, and Papagianni
(2010), who suggested that with the emergence of the online multiplayer games such as
MMOGs, activity theory has become a viable framework for designers to help design
effective, attractive, and meaningful online multiplayer educational games. Activity theory
has contributed to the building of complex learning systems that offer opportunities to players
and groups to interact with each other, manipulate objects, and use the tools of the game. This
interaction occurs and is enhanced through understanding the rules, principles, and tasks of
every player in the game community. In addition, activity theory also addresses the level of
performance and excellence in play such as gender differences in playing games, academic
performance, game use frequency, self-esteem, and computer self-efficacy. Studying these
factors may improve educational games because most game researchers are interested in the
ability of these games to attract players’ attention, interest, and meet their needs.
Many studies choose the WoW environment to study the elements of learning and
motivation (Schrader & McCeery, 2008). There could be several reasons for this choice.
First, this game can produce a feeling of pleasure, fun, and satisfaction among a large group
of players. In addition, this game has the ability to attract many players by providing several
options and ways to participate as well as to provide a social environment and cooperative
activities which allow players to work in cooperation with others. Furthermore, this game
represents an informal learning environment. It is designed so that players have the greatest
role in determining the goals, either in person or by joining a group to work collaboratively,
as well as applying higher analytical and cognitive skills such as evaluations, trial and error
processing, problem solving, and planning.
WoW is one of the most popular online games in attracting and sustaining players,
noted Billieux et al. (2013). Billieux et al. found factors that helped to achieve the spread of
the game are tied to the strategies that have been used in the design of this game, which
enables players to solve problems using their own initiative and having control over their
interaction. This ability to control may have a positive influence on players’ performance.
WoW also plays an important role in highlighting the importance of cooperation, discovery,
competition, and teamwork. In addition, self-motivation plays a significant role in the
formation of an active playing environment.
In an investigation into factors that motivate students to play WoW and what makes
this game so appealing, Mysirlaki and Paraskeva (2011) found that the building of social
relationships played an important role. This game enables students to form groups, which
evolve to become a cohesive society within the game. A sense of belonging to this
community is one of the factors that enhances the performance of the players. A feeling of
belonging creates and strengthens internal motivation as well as improves the performance
and motivation of the players to participate and interact.
MMOGs have several features that are directly related to their popularity. McCreery,
Schrader, and Krach (2011) described MMOGs generally as three-dimensional environments.
The players often communicate by means of text-based chat, email, and voice software.
Communication tools have a significant role in the development of social networking and
facilitating the exchange and sharing of information. The players can also use the movements
of their avatars as gestures to show friendships and feelings.
A variation of MMOGs has developed in the form of MMORPGs. In this type of
game, the players accomplish individual or cooperative goals through interactive and
motivating environments (Yee, 2007). Dickey (2007) describes MMORPGs as creating
efficient environments that encourage thousands of players to work together to accomplish
specific goals, develop specializations of skills and roles, and interact dynamically. The most
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distinctive characteristics of these games are that they are persistent, networked, interactive,
narrative, and multimodal environments.
Cole and Griffiths (2007) showed how MMORPGs enhance participants in
maintaining their friendships for a long period of time; some of them even meet in real life.
Cole and Griffiths also found that virtual gaming gives many players the chance to express
themselves comfortably in a more anonymous setting, and many players reveal sensitive
information they are often reluctant to discuss in real life with their family and friends such as
issues relating to their appearance, gender, sexuality, and/or age. These games offer a suitable
environment for encouragement, fun, and cooperation. Cole and Griffiths reported that
playing MMORPGs influences emotions and physical relationships. Their study also
indicated that the players had an increased sense of self-worth and that they trust themselves
and others more due to the lack of perceived judgment by others while playing the game.
The social aspects of WoW also affect the dynamics that are developed in playing this
game. Dickey (2011) examined the dynamics of play as an important factor that could
influence the learning environment. She used WoW in a game design course to examine the
impact of game culture and play on class dynamics. She documented that the culture of WoW
influenced both student-to-student and class dynamics in peer mentoring, interchangeable
roles, fellowship, and cooperation. Dickey noted that peer mentoring and the ability to have
interchangeable roles were integrated as part of the game play, but not in the classroom
setting. However, both fellowship and cooperation were integrated into the classroom
environment.
Nevertheless, there is still a gap in understanding how to develop these recreational
games to make it an educational tool that can be integrated into the curriculum. Researchers
have found that this game is not just fun, but that players need to acquire skills such as logical
thinking, literacy, sustaining challenge, and technology skills related to the use of the mouse,
moving the character, and the transition from one level to another (Schrader, Archambault, &
Oh-Young, 2011). One of the reasons for specifically examining the online game WoW was
to investigate if these skills learned from playing the game can generalize to academic
settings to enhance learning and to better prepare students to engage with today’s
technologies and modes of communication in real world situations.
The purpose of the study was to explore college students’ experiences with playing
World of Warcraft (WoW) and their views on the application of WoW in educational
settings. This study specifically addressed the issue of generalization of social skills learned
and enhanced by playing WoW recreationally to school settings to determine if there is a
natural connection between skills used in playing WoW and skills gained for learning in
school settings. The two research questions that guided this study are:
1. What are college students’ experiences with playing WoW?
2. What are the views of college students who play WoW recreationally toward
the application of WoW in educational settings?
The findings from this study may support other research that focus on discovering
players’ experiences with playing WoW, discussing the impact of WoW on education and
learning, and offering additional insights into ways of incorporating current technology into
academic settings.
Nariman Alawami and Heng-Yu Ku
1431
Method
Research Design and Theoretical Perspective
We employed a qualitative case study approach, using semi-structured interviews
which allowed us to explore the phenomenon of college students’ experience with playing
WoW and their perceptions toward the application of WoW in educational settings. A
qualitative design was chosen as the most appropriate design because it provides insights into
the case of educational applications of playing WoW, how people construct their worlds, how
they interpret their experiences, and the meaning they attribute to these experiences
(Merriam, 2009). We also chose a qualitative case study to allow us to explore the
phenomenon within a real-world context (Creswell, 2007). A constructivist theoretical
framework underlies this study, in which we investigated how individuals construct meaning
in their interactions with the world, and looked for shared visions among a variety of
individual constructed meanings as construed by Crotty (1998). Constructivism
acknowledges the role of the individual in the creation of meaning. Since this study focuses
on an online game that is played by many individuals coming from a multitude of cultures
and societies, we chose a constructivist approach to examine how these individuals create
meaning through their participation in this game.
Our perspective about these MMOGs and MMORPGs is that these can be successful
ways for students to gain skills that they can apply in educational settings such as
collaboration, critical thinking, planning and executing strategies for specific goals and
objectives, and teamwork. In addition, we believe that participating in these games is
motivating and fulfilling to students, and that they gain confidence and self-efficacy as they
develop more expertise in their playing. As researchers in the field of Educational
Technology, we are interested in exploring how technology that is successful in other arenas
can be effectively applied in educational settings. In order to address the possibility of
personal bias and opinions influencing research data and outcomes, we have employed tools
such as reflexive journaling and peer review (Merriam, 2009).
Participants and Setting
The study was conducted with the three college students who agreed to participate in
this study, had played WoW for at least three years, and were attending a Midwestern
university. All three participants were male and at least 20 years of age. One participant was
an undergraduate psychology major and the other two were graduate music majors.
Interviews were conducted in facilities on the campus of the university; one in the library,
and the other two at the student center.
Materials
A semi-structured interview guide was developed by the authors containing eight
questions to ask participants. These questions were guided by studies in the literature review
utilizing interview methodology. The questions focused on the perceived impact of playing
WoW in education, learning, and attitudes. Sample questions such as “How long have you
been playing WoW,” “How would you describe your involvement with this game over time,”
and “What impact do you think the game has had on your academic life?” were asked.
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Procedure
Before beginning any research with participants, this study was submitted and
approved by the university’s Institutional Review Board. Then, potential participants were
solicited both by personal contact and posting notes around campus, giving an email address
for respondents, using both snowballing and convenience sampling procedures. Three
students agreed to participate, an email was sent to them explaining the study in more detail,
and pseudonyms were then assigned to each participant (Alan, Bill, and Carl). Next, we
scheduled a time and place for the interviews, at which time participants signed a consent
form. The interviews were conducted face-to-face, taking approximately 30 minutes each,
and were recorded digitally and transcribed verbatim.
Data Collection
The primary method used for collecting the data was through semi-structured
interviews. The interview questions were in a semi-structured format following Merriam’s
(2009) recommendations in which “questions are more flexibly worded or the interview is a
mix of more and less structured questions” (p. 90). The questions were designed to allow
participants to elaborate upon their answers and to permit the researchers to probe deeper into
insights of the participants. We also took notes during the interviews in the form of field
notes, using Merriam’s recommendations.
Data Analysis
Data, in the form of the verbatim transcripts of the interviews, were analyzed using a
qualitative thematic methodology to provide evidence for the research question. First, we
read and reread the transcripts of each interview. We also used our notes taken during the
interview conjunction with in-depth reading in order to immerse ourselves into the data.
Merriam’s (2009) guidelines were followed in the analysis of the data as we moved from the
words of the participants to the generation of themes and categories. We began to sketch
ideas, reflections, comments on context, and observations of participants. We initially circled
common words and ideas to develop codes and categories. This allowed us to seek to
delineate common themes and strands of thinking by categorizing information and tabulating
occurrences of information. From these themes, we made comparisons and noted
relationships among the themes. As we looked at each case, we saw categories emerging;
some of the categories were unique to an individual, and some of the categories were shared
by all individuals. After we looked at the categories, we went back to the transcripts until we
felt that no additional ideas were to be found, and that our categories reflected the thoughts
expressed by the participants. At that point, we organized these categories into several
general themes.
Trustworthiness
According to Merriam (2009), there are two ways for ensuring the trustworthiness of
the data. One is to focus on the member check strategy, which might lead us to rewrite the
analysis because our interpretation is not accurately representing the participant’s
perspective. To construct internal validity and credibility in the data, we sent the findings via
email to one of the participants to provide feedback about the analysis. Another way is to use
peer examination strategy. As an educational technology major, most instructors can provide
Nariman Alawami and Heng-Yu Ku
1433
an expert’s examination on our topic. Therefore, we sent a copy of our findings to one of
them to review.
Findings
Students’ responses to the research question about their experience with playing
WoW and their thoughts regarding WoW for educational application are presented in the
following sections. There were two general themes, with several subthemes within these
general themes. The first general theme, the experiences of college students in playing WoW,
contained the subthemes of fun and relaxing, and motivating and addictive. The second
general theme, the views of students on applying WoW in educational settings, contained the
subthemes of teamwork and cooperation, socialization, academic skills, and time
management skills.
College Students’ Experiences with Playing WoW
Fun and Relaxing. One of the most common themes was the idea of fun. This theme
occurs over and over in participants’ responses, as can be seen from the following examples.
Alan stated, “I just have fun. I think that’s the whole idea for the game… unless you’re
having fun doing it, don’t... At least be yourself and enjoy. It’s a game. At least have some
fun doing it.” Alan also talked about how relaxing it was for him to play the game. “The
game is kind of a relaxation.” Bill expressed, “It's just a game. We did have fun with that
game with new people with totally, I don't know who he or she is.” Carl didn’t actually use
the word “fun” but he did mention how interesting the game was, and also talked about how
teenagers will love to play the game. He stated “Teenagers will love this game and play,
never stop it . . . this is so interesting for teenagers.”
Motivating and Addictive. The story of the players and their passion for this game
can be seen as the participants describe their entry into the world of WoW and their
involvement with the game. Their descriptions show how they view playing WoW as very
intense and wildly exciting. For example, Alan said, “At the beginning, my friends and I, we
jumped in it and we just played it nonstop, I mean, every waking moment - lot of moments
when we should have been asleep.” Alan continued,
Over time, it’s really slowed down, but it used to be every spare moment. I
mean I would be up till 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning. That’s one problem, that
the game is just a big toll on the day. You start, Oh, I’m just going to do this. I
won’t do that. I need to do this. To do this, I need … four hours later, you’re
still playing.
Bill added, “Since we heard the news that WoW is online, OK. Let's play that. Yeah. We're
crazy about this whole game… I’m thinking 30 hours every week. I think so. At least, it's a
crazy time.” Carl said, “We need to play every day.”
College Students’ Views on the Application of WoW in Educational Settings
Teamwork and Cooperation. In the interviews, participants repeatedly used the
words cooperation and teamwork. The participants explained how their involvement and
progression has changed over the months and years, and noted that teamwork and
cooperation are keys to promote succession and movement in the game. This can be seen in
the following examples. Alan said,
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Then over time we tried to link it with other people and form groups, because
that’s how you do the big quests in the game. That’s really hard because you
don’t know who you are playing with and there are a lot of kids out there. I
mean, 8, 10, 12 years old…
In addition, Alan also described how he thought that playing the game can help teach
important skills. He stated,
Games like this can be used for these things: cooperation and the need for
other kinds of skills…There’s different levels… If you all cooperate,
everybody gets the best guild… you learn to cooperate… one thing you learn
from this is cooperation and learn from the other person’s point of view.
Bill mentioned the control of emotion as an important point of playing on a team. He
mentioned,
If you play this game very well ... this is a team game, so we must have at least
five people together to play it. If you play it very well and you saw a noob
(sic) plays very badly, you're angry. You must control your emotion to that.
Sometimes, I was very angry because I was young. It's like, “You're wasting
my time,” but it is negative.
Carl added,
I think… this is a really good game because every time you try to play, you
must play with some others. It’s really teamwork and cooperation. You have a
lot of friends. So you can make your own team to fight and to play with each
other.
Socialization. As participants continued with their interviews, their comments
seemed to indicate a new theme: socialization. For example, Alan commented, “I think part
of the game is socializing, to do things with your friends.” Throughout Alan’s interview,
several comments came up relating to socializing:
That’s the whole point of it, is you try it. If it doesn’t work the first time, you
talk to people. Like I said, I can help people in the game... I played with
people from England and all over Europe, and that’s the fun part of the game,
too, is you get to connect with people and you don’t know where they’re from
until you ask.
Bill commented, “…all my classmates are crazy about this game, we are playing
together. I like this game because all my friends are around me. Since this game is an online
game, it needs a lot of people. I made some new friends through this game.” Carl added, “We
can make lots of new friends during the playing. They are all students, and we have lots of
the same hobbies...”
Academic skills. There were a variety of responses and academic skills mentioned
relating to how participants described the transfer of academic skills from WoW to
educational settings. These comments all fell into the category of academic skills. For
example, Alan expressed the idea that playing WoW has improved his writing skills. He likes
Nariman Alawami and Heng-Yu Ku
1435
to write science fiction, and he said that this interest was closely related to concepts and
imagery in the game. Alan mentioned,
The fantasy stuff, I liked the dragons, I liked the swords… I’m always looking
to do things differently, so when I see somebody else’s image of what a
dragon is supposed to look like, then I go, that’s not the picture I have in my
mind. I go home and write out what I think…
Alan added, “I am getting faster at typing, which helps with my writing.” For Alan, playing
the game helps him improve his writing skill, expand his creativity, and increase his typing
skills.
In contrast, Bill and Carl felt that playing the game did not help them with their
writing. Carl said, “I don't think this game improved my writing skills so much because I
don't need to write a lot.” Bill said, “Writing? Nothing.”
Alan, Bill, and Carl did spend a lot of time talking about how playing the game helps
them develop analytical skills such as reading, investigating, searching and making queries,
analyzing, testing out hypotheses, and trying to figure things out, all of which are salient to
academic settings. Alan said, “One of the things I do besides killing monsters and going on
quests is you actually have to do what they call farming. You actually have to go out and find
minerals or find clothes…” He later talked about analyzing why something didn’t work, and
then trying to figure out a new way to complete a task. Then he talked about having to test a
new idea. “Well, now I have to test it, I have to go on this quest.” He mentioned that nobody
gets it right the first time so you have to strategize and incorporate that into your life.
Bill added, "During this game, it has a lot of missions. You must take that mission and
finish it… Sometimes, I would misunderstand the mission. I learned from reading that
mission's directions. It increased my reading skills.” Carl mentioned,
For reading, I think there is some... If you want to play by yourself, there are
lots of rules, like with the single rules. You need to really understand the steps.
They are very complicated sometimes. Like, see this person first, and kill
some animals and collect something. Then, collect maybe 10 items for these
specific things, and then go back to hand out these items. Then you can get
some experience and money. Maybe later, you must go to that city and see the
other person do the same thing. Sometimes you must regroup the team and
fight with somebody.
Time Management Skills. In addition to stating specific academic skills, Alan, Bill,
and Carl also discussed ways in which playing WoW helped develop their time management
skills using words and terms such as planning, scheduling, and organization. For example,
Alan described how the time he spent playing the game, along with his responsibilities as a
student, forced him to “plan around it.” He learned to develop a schedule so he could make
sure he did the tasks he needed to, and still had time to play the game. “I have to sit down and
say, okay this time is for this, this, this, and this. Strategize work.” Carl also agreed about
that. “I can manage my time perfectly. I can play a lot. It doesn't influence any academic life
for me…”
On the other hand, Bill described how the time he spent playing the game, along with
his responsibilities as a student, forced him to quit this game. Bill stated,
I will think in my senior year, I would think, I can't play this anymore because
it's a waste of my time. I need to practice. I need to apply to the new school.
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The Qualitative Report 2016
So many things to do. I have a recital... I'm a music major... I have a recital, I
need to practice a lot, so I have no time to play this.
Alan and Carl both agreed that different levels in the game require different strategies
and roles. Alan said,
Games like this can be used to teach those things: cooperation and the need for
other kinds of skills. I mean, you go on a quest; it’s not all warriors. You have
to have somebody there to heal the wounds. They have to be as competent as
the fighters. There are different levels. Like I said, in every guild there are
people who know how to do fighting. There are people who know how to do
healing. There are people who know how to manufacture. There are people
who have the raw materials you need, the gems, whatever. If you all
cooperate, everybody gets the best guild. That’s really easy.
Carl added,
This game is so interesting because, first off, there are maybe 70 or 85 levels,
so you can improve your levels, and a lot of… you have a lot of friends. So
you can make your own team to fight and to play with each other. So I think,
first off, improving your level is interesting, so every day you are improving.
In contrast, Bill said, “The levels increased 60, 70, 75, 80. The game is becoming
more and more complicated for me. It has many things to do. It's like, for me, too
complicated, so I quit this game.” For Bill, eventually the challenges and complexity
increasing throughout the levels ended up being beyond what he wanted to devote to his
game-playing.
Discussion
The purpose of the study was to explore college students’ experiences with playing
WoW and their views on the application of WoW in educational settings. We found that
players thought that playing WoW was fun, relaxing, motivating, but sometimes almost to the
point of addiction. They were also interested in working cooperatively through helping one
another, offering advice, and giving encouragement. Forming supportive groups plays an
important role in promoting success and movement in the game. The participants in this study
also mentioned playing the game improved their academic skills such as writing, typing,
reading, searching, analyzing, reasoning, problem solving, and understanding. Playing this
game also encouraged participants to develop time management skills that help them balance
their responsibilities between real life and virtual world.
The theme, that playing WoW was fun and relaxing, supported the findings of
researchers such as Connolly, Boyle, MacArthur, Hainey, and Boyle (2012) and Snodgrass et
al. (2012). These studies indicated social and immersion motivations are more likely to be
associated with positive experiences. One of the greatest benefits of playing WoW was to
simply relax because WoW provides the opportunity for players to act collectively. The
nature of the community that the players created online provided a fun and relaxing contrast
from the rigors of studying.
In addition, all three participants agreed that teamwork, cooperating, and socialization
skills they gained from playing the game lead to fundamental changes in their progression.
Authentic environments today require people to work together to complete tasks and projects.
Nariman Alawami and Heng-Yu Ku
1437
The collaboration and social patterns found in this study also support the findings of Chen’s
(2008) study that the success in MMORPGs depends on the use of principles of cooperation
to enhance communication skills, organization, and coordination among players. Progressing
to advanced stages is related to players’ attributes such as endurance, building positive
relationships coherently, and creating confidence in the playing environment. Since
successful students have a high level of responsibility and commitment to their work, we
believe these attributes are very important for students to achieve their educational goals.
Trust was also found to be an important factor that helps in building MMORPG
teams, especially in the early stages, where many of the difficulties and challenges accrue in
the stage of raids. Chang and Lin (2014) reported that members of the team at the stage of
forming raids, teams gather together and agree on an invitation-known person who has
experience, has arrived at level 70 in order to lead the team and has participated in advanced
and difficult raids. The current study also found that trust and teamwork were important
especially in beginning phases of the game, a finding that supports Ku, Tseng, and
Akarasriworn’s (2013) study.
In addition, participants described how they thought that playing the game can help
them improve their academic skills such as reading, investigation, searching, making queries,
analyzing, and testing out hypotheses, as well as improving planning/scheduling,
understanding roles, and developing organizational skills. These findings have positive
implications for teachers who wish to help their students improve in these areas, which
support Campello de Souza, Lima e Silva, and Roazzi (2010) and Chen’s (2008) research
findings of the positive association of games with higher levels of academic achievement and
scholastic ability. Based on participants’ statements, we believe playing WoW could improve
students’ academic performance and their abilities to solve organizational problems. In
WoW, players could analyze all aspects of the problems’ missions, find effective solutions,
and devise appropriate planning, and these are important skills to have in academic settings.
In addition, playing WoW could encourage students to explore on their own and provide
them different ways to gather information. Furthermore, WoW provides numerous resources
which lead players to form their own opinions and use critical thinking and controlling
techniques to accomplish the mission and advance to next level.
The participants in the present study also contemplated the link between the real
world and the virtual world in their comments about using analytical and time management
skills in real life. This is reflected in their comments about balancing the demands of life,
work, and other obligations with game playing. MMOGs and MMORPGs are a blend of the
real world and the virtual world. Mastering games like WoW require a level of awareness and
a deep understanding of the game world and the real world. The new world of games has
enhanced the appearance of the term “conceptual blends,” empowering players through the
game to create significant ways that enable them to increase their perceptions of both worlds
(Thomas & Brown, 2007).
Limitations
Because this study only interviewed three participants, findings are limited. Other
limitations include a small population from which participants were drawn, and that the study
was conducted in only one university in a small mid-Western city. Also, only interviews were
used, rather than using other sources to gain data, such as observations, focus groups, and
record review. The interviews were also a bit short, and participants were interviewed only
once.
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Generalizability
Although only three students participated in this study, their responses support the
conclusions of many other researchers, providing additional support for the ability to
generalize these findings to the general populations of college students. However, caution
must be exercised, recognizing that the findings may describe the general group of college
students but not necessarily reflect the responses of any particular student.
Implications
Educational games are increasingly being developed and used as a part of learning of
student’s needs to obtain a better understanding (Kovacevic, ́ Minović, Milovanović, de
Pablos, & Starcevic, 2013). The findings from this study on perspectives of people who play
WoW recreationally about using this game in educational settings will help inform
researchers and educators about ways to integrate games and technology in education and
learning. First, there are clear applications of WoW to educational settings to improve
specific skills such as reading, math, geography, social studies, and music. This was a
repeated theme that showed up throughout the participants’ interviews. But closely related to
the academic subject areas was the application to critical thinking, problem solving, and
creative exploration that is an important component in gaming that can have potential
positive applications in academic settings to help students reach higher levels of thought
processes and important critical thinking strategies to employ in problem solving and in
devising new approaches.
Another theme that occurred throughout this study was the aspect of socialization and
working collaboratively. Academic settings are increasingly concentrating on authentic
situations as focal points in which to solve real problems in the real world, and using real
world strategies such as communication, cooperation, and collaboration. As this trend
continues, players of games like WoW will have already developed these important skills,
and this can be applied to help those students without these skills to attain and develop them.
For future research, this study does point to ways to further explore gaming,
particularly WoW, for educational purposes. One possibility is to include both male and
female college students to see if there are different perceptions regarding playing WoW and
its educational applications between genders. Secondly, similar studies need to be carried out
at different sites throughout the world to ascertain if there are regional differences. Finally, it
would also be interesting to conduct a study with university professors who play online video
games and explore the effects of gaming in their teaching.
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Author Note
Nariman Alawami received her B.A. of Education in Psychology from the King Saud
University and earned her Master’s degree in Educational Technology from the University of
Northern Colorado (UNC). She is currently a Ph.D. student at UNC. Her research interests
are in instructional design and online video games. Correspondence regarding this article can
be addressed directly to: [email protected].
Heng-Yu Ku is a Professor in the College of Education and Behavioral Sciences at the
University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, CO, 80639. Correspondence regarding this article
can also be addressed directly to: [email protected].
Copyright 2016: Nariman Alawami, Heng-Yu Ku, and Nova Southeastern University.
Article Citation
Alawami, N., & Ku, H. Y. (2016). Every day you are improving: How college students view
the educational impact of World of Warcraft. The Qualitative Report, 21(8), 14281440. Retrieved from http://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol21/iss8/7